Colossalhttps://www.thisiscolossal.com
Art, design, and visual culture.Mon, 19 Nov 2018 19:59:35 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8Video Editing Tools Digitally Alter Everyday Urban Infrastructurehttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/vladimir-tomin/
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 19:59:35 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=105052Vladimir Tomin (previously) manipulates the world around him by overlaying video editing tools onto streets, construction sites, and even his apartment building windows. A pixelated cursor peels back a white strip of paint from the road, while another “pastes” birds on top of the air vent of an industrial building. All of the digitized tricks blend seamlessly into the everyday footage, reminding his audience how easy it has become to make something false appear as unquestioned reality. More]]>

Russian motion designer Vladimir Tomin (previously) manipulates the world around him by overlaying video editing tools onto streets, construction sites, and even his apartment building windows. A pixelated cursor peels back a white strip of paint from the road, while another “pastes” birds on top of the air vent of an industrial building. All of the digitized tricks blend seamlessly into the everyday footage, reminding his audience how easy it has become to make something false appear as unquestioned reality. You can see more of his digital hacks and reality-bending editing in the video below as well as on Vimeo and Instagram.

]]>Slumped Plexiglass Pillows by Colin Roberts Refract Light like Dazzling Disco Ballshttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/slumped-plexiglass-pillows-by-colin-roberts/
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 17:02:27 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=105055Colin Roberts began creating pillows out of perspex, or plexiglass, in 2008. The solid imitations of typically plush objects are shaped to be dented and slumped which presents the illusion of softness despite their stiff composition. “I was inspired to use the pillow shape because it’s an object that is so common, yet as humans, we all have a special relationship to, without realizing it,” Roberts explains to Colossal. “A pillow is something every human can recognize and long for when needing rest. More]]>

Los Angeles-based artist Colin Roberts began creating pillows out of perspex, or plexiglass, in 2008. The solid imitations of typically plush objects are shaped to be dented and slumped which presents the illusion of softness despite their stiff composition. “I was inspired to use the pillow shape because it’s an object that is so common, yet as humans, we all have a special relationship to, without realizing it,” Roberts explains to Colossal. “A pillow is something every human can recognize and long for when needing rest. It represents comfort, rest, and sleep for our mind, body, and soul.”

The patchwork sculptures are often multi-colored and refract light like a mirrored disco ball. The artist’s work is currently being exhibited in the group exhibition Divided Brain at LAVA Projects in Los Angeles through December 16, 2018. You can see more of Roberts’s plexiglass sculptures on his website and Instagram. (via The Jealous Curator)

]]>Miniature Watercolor Landscapes and Fashion Sketches Delicately Painted on Used Tea Bagshttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/miniature-paintings-on-tea-bags/
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 14:09:41 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=105029Ruby Silvious (previously) reuses her tea bags as miniature canvases to paint sliced watermelon, serene landscapes, and models adorned in dress-shaped candy wrappers. The works typically keep the tags attached, reminding the viewer of their beverage-based origin. Her newest works were created during an art residency in Arenys de Munt, a town 45 minutes outside of Barcelona, Spain. In March 2019, her miniature paintings will be featured in a solo exhibition at Creative Space Hayashi located in Chigasaki, Japan. More]]>

After a good steep, Ruby Silvious (previously) reuses her tea bags as miniature canvases to paint sliced watermelon, serene landscapes, and models adorned in dress-shaped candy wrappers. The works typically keep the tags attached, reminding the viewer of their beverage-based origin. Her newest works were created during an art residency in Arenys de Munt, a town 45 minutes outside of Barcelona, Spain. In March 2019, her miniature paintings will be featured in a solo exhibition at Creative Space Hayashi located in Chigasaki, Japan. You can see more of Silvious’s work on her website and Instagram.

]]>Ceramist Anna Whitehouse Created 100 Unique Clay Vessels in 100 Dayshttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/100-unique-clay-vessels-in-100-days/
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 21:57:00 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=105018Anna Whitehouse set a goal on January 1, 2018 to create a new bottle each day for 100 days. By limiting herself to a single form, Whitehouse was able to stretch her creativity to formulate new designs previously unexplored in her practice. Each white ceramic bottle was uniformly shaped, but the designs she created on the surface differed each day. Some bottles were punctured with tiny repetitive holes, while others were covered in leaf-like applications or floral motifs. More]]>

U.K.-based ceramic artist Anna Whitehouse set a goal on January 1, 2018 to create a new bottle each day for 100 days. By limiting herself to a single form, Whitehouse was able to stretch her creativity to formulate new designs previously unexplored in her practice. Each white ceramic bottle was uniformly shaped, but the designs she created on the surface differed each day. Some bottles were punctured with tiny repetitive holes, while others were covered in leaf-like applications or floral motifs.

“I tried pressing and scraping any tool I could get my hands on into the clay,” Whitehouse explains. “From my standard clay tools to pen lids, tweezers, scissors, and even a string of beads! I also started making my own tools from bits of broken pen, wire, and aluminum to create particular marks.”​

​The artist compares the 100-day-long exercise to journaling or filling a sketchbook, as each new object was like a brand new sketch that could be learned from for the next day. “I’ve kept the work unglazed, like white pages from a sketchbook, highlighting the mark making through the contrast created by shadows.”

After the completion of her project Whitehouse created a “clay calendar” which you can visit on her website. The interactive portfolio outlines each bottle she made from January 1 to April 10, 2018, and includes her unique titles which are based on something that happened during the day they were made. You can see further iterations of her bottles and clay creations on her Instagram. (via Colossal Submissions)

]]>Handmade Paper Toys by Haruki Nakamura Spring, Fold, and Jump into Actionhttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/new-handmade-paper-toys-by-haruki-nakamura/
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 20:01:09 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=104904Haruki Nakamura (previously) continues to design delightful toys using simple materials. A friendly armadillo curls into a self-protective ball at the touch of a finger, and a sleepy boy emerges, ready to sleepwalk, in “Astral Projection.” Nakamura uses rubber bands and carefully held points of paper tension to spark the jumpy movements of his characters, and sells kits so you can make your own endless entertainment. The artist only sells within Japan on his website, but this Penguin Bomb toy is available on Amazon. More]]>

Japanese paper engineer Haruki Nakamura (previously) continues to design delightful toys using simple materials. A friendly armadillo curls into a self-protective ball at the touch of a finger, and a sleepy boy emerges, ready to sleepwalk, in “Astral Projection.” Nakamura uses rubber bands and carefully held points of paper tension to spark the jumpy movements of his characters, and sells kits so you can make your own endless entertainment. The artist only sells within Japan on his website, but this Penguin Bomb toy is available on Amazon.

]]>A Specially Adapted Underwater Wheelchair Brings Artist Sue Austin Beneath the Earth’s Surfacehttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/sue-austin-underwater/
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:50:02 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=104978Sue Austin creates multimedia, performance, and installation art, using her wheelchair as a means to explore new patterns of movement. In 2012, Austin was commissioned to create a series of multimedia events as part of that year’s Cultural Olympiad, in conjunction with the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. The result, titled “Creating the Spectacle!” is a spectacular immersive dance performance and underwater exploration, which was shot near Shark el Sheik, Egypt by Norman Lomax of Moving Content. More]]>

British artist Sue Austin creates multimedia, performance, and installation art, using her wheelchair as a means to explore new patterns of movement. In 2012, Austin was commissioned to create a series of multimedia events as part of that year’s Cultural Olympiad, in conjunction with the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. The result, titled “Creating the Spectacle!” is a spectacular immersive dance performance and underwater exploration, which was shot near Shark el Sheik, Egypt by Norman Lomax of Moving Content. You can watch a portion of the film below.

In the film, Austin uses her arms to guide her through the water, and she wears a summery dress with her long hair flowing freely, as she navigates through schools of fish and past massive coral reefs. Her underwater wheelchair is adapted from a standard-issue National Health Service chair, with battery powered propellers and perspex aerofoils to control turns. Austin hopes that the adaptations will be more widely available at diving centers in the future to make diving more inclusive.

A statement on her website explains, “she aims to find dramatic and powerful ways to re-position disability and Disability Arts as the ‘Hidden Secret’. She argues that this ‘secret’, if explored, valued and then shared, can act to heal the divisions created in the social psyche by cultural dichotomies that define the ‘disabled’ as ‘other’.”

Austin first performed with her underwater wheelchair in Dorset, U.K. in 2012, and has since performed, shown films, and spoken around the world about her art practice. You can learn more about Austin and her organization Freewheeling, on her website, and watch her TED Talk here. (via #WOMENSART)

]]>Mexican Guardians Haunt Familial Portraits by Photographer Diego Morenohttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/mexican-guardians-diego-moreno/
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 15:06:24 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=104922Diego Moreno incorporates ancestral imagery with a familiar contemporary universe in his series “In My Mind There is Never Silence.” The artist shares with Colossal that the characters that populate the series draw from his personal family history along with pre-Hispanic Mexican traditions. Each photograph depicts a normal domestic scene: gathering around a table for coffee, getting a hair cut, or playing in the living room with television on in the background. Moreno’s grotesque guardians are participants in or witnesses to these everyday tableaux, which doesn’t seem to surprise or alarm the humans in the room. More]]>

Photographer Diego Moreno incorporates ancestral imagery with a familiar contemporary universe in his series “In My Mind There is Never Silence.” The artist shares with Colossal that the characters that populate the series draw from his personal family history along with pre-Hispanic Mexican traditions. Each photograph depicts a normal domestic scene: gathering around a table for coffee, getting a hair cut, or playing in the living room with television on in the background. Moreno’s grotesque guardians are participants in or witnesses to these everyday tableaux, which doesn’t seem to surprise or alarm the humans in the room.

Each large, monstrous character, the Panzudo (which translates roughly to “paunchy”) guards a neighborhood in Chiapas, Mexico, and their size and grotesqueness reflects each individual’s scale of sin. He explains, “This work gives new meaning to the intricate tangle of the concealed and the visible, the individual and the collective subconscious, on the highly complex map of coexisting cultures and beliefs in contemporary Mexico.”

The series will be released as a photobook in 2019. The images will also be on view, representing Latin America, in the 5th African photo biennial in Ethiopia in December, 2018, in the Photo Vogue Festival in Milan, Italy on November 15, 2018. (via Lens Culture)

]]>Children’s Blocks Take the Form of Simplified Animals in Animations by Lucas Zanottohttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/minimals-by-lucas-zanotto/
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 21:33:52 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=104910MINIMALS is a new short film by Helsinki-based animator and director Lucas Zanotto (previously) composed of fictionalized kinetic sculptures based on real animals. The series of short animations catch each simplified creature in a repetitive loop that imitates the extension of an elephant’s trunk, a crab’s sideways walk, or the incessant pecking of chickens. The animals appear to be formed from children’s blocks with colors that hint at their actual breed. More]]>

MINIMALS is a new short film by Helsinki-based animator and director Lucas Zanotto (previously) composed of fictionalized kinetic sculptures based on real animals. The series of short animations catch each simplified creature in a repetitive loop that imitates the extension of an elephant’s trunk, a crab’s sideways walk, or the incessant pecking of chickens. The animals appear to be formed from children’s blocks with colors that hint at their actual breed. Pink spheres with snouts are an easy give-away for pigs, while other configurations, like a flat mauve disk rolling across a slender beige cylinder, are a little bit harder to place. Zanotto’s second book, EVERIMAL, was published earlier this year. You can see more of his short animations on his Instagram and Vimeo.

]]>Hundreds of Japanese Firework Illustrations Now Available for Free Downloadhttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/japanese-firework-illustrations/
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 17:45:48 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=104939Brocks Fireworks) published colorful catalogs displaying designs from Japanese companies such as Hirayama Fireworks and Yokoi Fireworks. Six catalogs of diverse pyrotechnic diagrams have been digitized and made available for download thanks to the city of Yokohama’s public library. If you don’t read Japanese, you can download each publication’s PDF by visiting their website, clicking one of the book’s English titles near the bottom of the page, and then clicking “本体PDF画像” link below the image. More]]>

In the early 20th-century English fireworks company C.R. Brock and Company (now known as Brocks Fireworks) published colorful catalogs displaying designs from Japanese companies such as Hirayama Fireworks and Yokoi Fireworks. Six catalogs of diverse pyrotechnic diagrams have been digitized and made available for download thanks to the city of Yokohama’s public library. If you don’t read Japanese, you can download each publication’s PDF by visiting their website, clicking one of the book’s English titles near the bottom of the page, and then clicking “本体PDF画像” link below the image. Each catalog is a tremendous and varied selection of the firework shapes and colors of the time, with several designs you might recognize no matter where you view contemporary fireworks displays. (via Open Culture)

]]>A Green-Tinted Aluminum Canopy Inspired by Florida’s Mangrove Treeshttps://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/11/form-of-wander/
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 14:17:11 +0000https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?p=104871Form of Wander is a new project by Mark Fornes of THEVERYMANY studio (previously) which was recently installed on a pier above the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida. The winding aluminum structure was built to subtly imitate the form of the native mangrove, and extends the city’s Riverfront Park recreational space onto the waterway. Its shape encourages playful wandering through the seven trunks secured along the floating bridge, and its branches imitate the mangrove’s tangled roots. More]]>

Form of Wander is a new project by Mark Fornes of THEVERYMANY studio (previously) which was recently installed on a pier above the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida. The winding aluminum structure was built to subtly imitate the form of the native mangrove, and extends the city’s Riverfront Park recreational space onto the waterway. Its shape encourages playful wandering through the seven trunks secured along the floating bridge, and its branches imitate the mangrove’s tangled roots. Despite the thickness of the green-tinted structure being just a few millimeters, the canopy was built to withstand hurricane force winds. It held up to its first major storm this October when Hurricane Michael traveled through Florida’s Gulf Coast. (via Colossal Submissions)